


Mahlab

by JoAsakura



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard always  listens, even when Kaidan thinks he's not. (from a lovely prompt from Mabbonetsamhain on tumblr!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mahlab

Kaidan had mentioned them just once, his grandmother’s cookies.

They were eating something that had billed itself as “meat stroganof” - No one asked Cortez where he’d found it and no one wanted to know what was actually in it - sitting in Shepard’s quarters.

(Shepard rarely ate with the crew - not out of any elitism, but mainly because he was always hungry. Kaidan understood. Even with their supplements and food bars and energy gels, they were using their biotics all the time, and their calorie requirements were through the roof.

And, well, Kaidan had come to notice that Shepard ate like a cranky, starving wolverine when he was hungry. Thus, they decided that it was better for everyone if he just ate in his room.)

So it was somewhere in between the misspelled, gluey “meat stroganof” and something that billed itself as a “cherry coblar” that Kaidan reminisced about the cookies.

They had been his great-grandmother’s recipe, maybe even older than that. Thin and golden-crisp - and redolent of mahlab. The sour cherry pits gave them a complex taste - sweet and floral, yet faintly bitter. He remembered having them with his grandparents, feet swinging from his chair as he carefully blew on the small cup of tea and milk they gave him.

He didn’t think Shepard had even heard him over the chewing.

~~

It wasn’t that Kaidan didn’t appreciate Shepard’s attempts to keep busy as he healed.

The vegetable garden was slowly coming along, and the still in the back hadn’t exploded and killed anyone yet. They were in negotiations over chickens, and the laundry was always done.

But the baking thing was new and not entirely welcome as the Saviour of the Galaxy discovered in fits and starts that if a moderately hot oven was good, a REALLY hot oven was not always an improvement.

Kaidan had choked down... interpretations... of every Russian dessert Shepard could think of, a few distressing asari recipes that Liara had ill-advisedly given him, and then there was the time with Garrus.

They didn’t talk about that one, but Kaidan thought it telling that their bond survived even THAT incident.

So, when Major-General Kaidan Alenko stepped into his front door after a very long day, the scent of mahlab caught him off guard.

Very carefully, Kaidan hung up his coat and crept down the hall, silently peering into the kitchen. Shepard was looking at a tray of cookies, critically. He rubbed his scruffy beard with a scowl as he picked up a dark brown, uneven disk.

On the old gas stove, the kettle whistled and he set the tea to steeping, glancing over his shoulder with a little shrug. “I made cookies.”

Kaidan grinned and took a bite of one.

Complex, sweet and bitter. And just a little burnt around the edges.

“Perfect.” He said, leaning his forehead against Shepard’s. “They’re perfect.”


End file.
